[Quote No.40901] Need Area: Mind > Focus "Time often resembles a fine gold powder that we distractedly allow to slip through our fingers without ever realizing it. Put it to good use, it is the shuttle we pass through the weft of our days to weave the fabric of a meaningful life. It is therefore essential to the quest for happiness that we are aware that time is our most precious commodity. This does not mean that we should get rid of what is meaningful in life but rather of that which causes us to waste our life. As Seneca says: ‘It is not that we have so little time, but that we waste so much of it.’ " - Matthieu RicardInitially a young researcher in cellular genetics at the French Institut Pasteur with Nobel Prize in Medicine winner, Francois Jacob, he has for the last 35 years been a Buddhist Monk, living and working on humanitarian projects in Tibet and Nepal. He has been dubbed the ‘happiest person in the world’ by the popular media. Quote from his best-selling book, ‘The Art of Happiness- A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill’.
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[Quote No.40907] Need Area: Mind > Focus "Flow is the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.
According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task although flow is also described (below) as a deep focus on nothing but the activity – not even oneself or one's emotions.
Colloquial terms for this or similar mental states include: to be on the ball, in the moment, present, in the zone, wired in, in the groove, on fire, in tune, or centered...
The study of the concept of flow came about in the 1960s. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who is considered to be the founder of flow, and his fellow researchers began researching flow after Csikszentmihalyi became fascinated by artists who would essentially get lost in their work. Artists, especially painters, got so immersed in their work that they would disregard their need for food, water and even sleep. Thus, the origin of research on the theory of flow came about when Csikszentmihalyi tried to understand this phenomenon experienced by these artists. Flow research became prevalent in the 1980s and 1990s, still with Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues in Italy at the forefront. Researchers interested in optimal experiences and emphasizing positive experiences, especially in places such as schools and the business world, also began studying the theory of flow in this time period. The theory of flow was greatly used in the theories of Maslow and Rogers in their development of the humanistic tradition of psychology [and the idea of ‘peak experiences’ and ‘self-actualization’].
Flow has been experienced throughout history and across cultures. The teachings of Buddhism and Taoism speak of a state of mind known as the ‘action of inaction’ or ‘doing without doing’ that greatly resembles the idea of flow. Also, Indian texts on Advaita philosophy such as Ashtavakra Gita and the Yoga of Knowledge such as Bhagavad-Gita refer to this similar state.
Historical sources hint that Michelangelo may have painted the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel while in a flow state. It is reported that he painted for days at a time, and he was so absorbed in his work that he did not stop for food or sleep until he reached the point of passing out. He would wake up refreshed and, upon starting to paint again, re-entered a state of complete absorption.
Bruce Lee also spoke of a psychological state similar to flow in his book the Tao of Jeet Kune Do...
In every given moment, there is a great deal of information made available to each individual. Psychologists have found that one's mind can attend to only a certain amount of information at a time. According to Mihaly's 1956 study, that number is about 126 bits of information per second. That may seem like a large number (and a lot of information), but simple daily tasks take quite a lot of information. Just having a conversation takes about 40 bits of information per second; that's 1/3 of one's capacity. That is why when one is having a conversation he or she cannot focus as much of his or her attention on other things.
For the most part (except for basic bodily feelings like hunger and pain, which are innate), people are able to decide what they want to focus their attention on. However, when one is in the flow state, he or she is completely engrossed with the one task at hand and, without making the conscious decision to do so, loses awareness of all other things: time, people, distractions, and even basic bodily needs. This occurs because all of the attention of the person in the flow state is on the task at hand; there is no more attention to be allocated...
MMA champion and Karate master Lyoto Machida uses meditation techniques before fights to attain mushin, a concept that, by his description, is in all respects equal to flow.
The Formula One driver Ayrton Senna, who during qualifying for the 1988 Monaco Grand Prix explained: ‘I was already on pole, [...] and I just kept going. Suddenly I was nearly two seconds faster than anybody else, including my team mate with the same car. And suddenly I realised that I was no longer driving the car consciously. I was driving it by a kind of instinct, only I was in a different dimension. It was like I was in a tunnel.’
When challenges and skills are simultaneously above average, a broadly positive experience emerges. Also vital to the flow state is a sense of control, which nevertheless seems simultaneously effortless and masterful. Control and concentration manifest with a transcendence of normal awareness; one aspect of this transcendence is the loss of self-consciousness...
Csíkszentmihályi may have been the first to describe this concept in Western psychology, but as he himself readily acknowledges he was most certainly not the first to quantify the concept of flow or develop applications based on the concept.
For millennia, practitioners of Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism have honed the discipline of overcoming the duality of self and object as a central feature of spiritual development. Eastern spiritual practitioners have developed a very thorough and holistic set of theories around overcoming duality of self and object, tested and refined through spiritual practice instead of the systematic rigor and controls of modern science.
The phrase being at one with things is a metaphor of Csíkszentmihályi's flow concept. Practitioners of the varied schools of Zen Buddhism apply concepts similar to flow to aid their mastery of art forms, including, in the case of Japanese Zen Buddhism, Aikido, Cheng Hsin, Judo, Honkyoku, Kendo and Ikebana. In yogic traditions such as Raja Yoga reference is made to a state of flow in the practice of Samyama, a psychological absorption in the object of meditation. Theravada Buddhism refers to ‘access concentration’ which is a state of flow achieved through meditation and used to further strengthen concentration into jhana, and/or to develop insight..." - wikipedia.org[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology) ]Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this AuthorStart Searching Amazon for GiftsSend as Free eCard with optional Google Image

[Quote No.42812] Need Area: Mind > Focus "The secret of getting things done is to act." - Dante Alighieri(circa 1265 – 1321), Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem 'Commedia', later named 'La divina commedia' ('Divine Comedy'), considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.
In Italy he is known as 'il Sommo Poeta' ('the Supreme Poet') or just 'il Poeta'. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also known as 'the three fountains' or 'the three crowns'. Dante is also called the 'Father of the Italian language'.
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[Quote No.42813] Need Area: Mind > Focus "[Freedom, individualism and being yourself, so long as you don't hurt another's physical person or property:] Follow your own star!" - Dante Alighieri(circa 1265 – 1321), Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem 'Commedia', later named 'La divina commedia' ('Divine Comedy'), considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.
In Italy he is known as 'il Sommo Poeta' ('the Supreme Poet') or just 'il Poeta'. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also known as 'the three fountains' or 'the three crowns'. Dante is also called the 'Father of the Italian language'.
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[Quote No.42922] Need Area: Mind > Focus "It's only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world." - Joseph Campbell(1904 – 1987), American professor, writer, and orator best known for his work in the fields of comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience. Campbell's seminal work, ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ (1949), discusses what Campbell called the monomyth — the cycle of the journey of the hero — a term that he borrowed directly from Joyce's ‘Finnegans Wake’. His work, ‘The Masks of God’, written between 1962 and 1968, in four-volumes covers mythology from around the world, from ancient to modern. Where ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ focused on the commonality of mythology (the ‘elementary ideas’), ‘The Masks of God’ books focus upon historical and cultural variations the monomyth takes on (the ‘folk ideas’). In other words, where ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’ draws perhaps more from psychology, ‘The Masks of God’ books draw more from anthropology and history. The four volumes of ‘The Masks of God’ are as follows: ‘Primitive Mythology’, ‘Oriental Mythology’, ‘Occidental Mythology’, and ‘Creative Mythology’. At the time of his death, Campbell was in the midst of working upon a large-format, lavishly illustrated series entitled ‘Historical Atlas of World Mythology’. This series was to build on Campbell’s idea, first presented in ‘The Hero with a Thousand Faces’, that myth evolves over time through four stages: -1- ‘The Way of the Animal Powers’—the myths of Paleolithic hunter-gatherers which focus on shamanism and animal totems; -2- ‘The Way of the Seeded Earth’—the myths of Neolithic, agrarian cultures which focus upon a mother goddess and associated fertility rites; -3- ‘The Way of the Celestial Lights’—the myths of Bronze Age city-states with pantheons of gods ruling from the heavens, led by a masculine god-king, and; -4- ‘The Way of Man’—religion and philosophy as it developed after the Axial Age (c. 6th century BC), in which the mythic imagery of previous eras was made consciously metaphorical, reinterpreted as referring to psycho-spiritual, not literal-historical, matters. This transition is evident in the East in Buddhism, Vedanta, and philosophical Taoism; and in the West in the Mystery Cults, Platonism, Christianity and Gnosticism. Other well-known works of his are ‘Myths to Live By’ (1972), ‘Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation’ (2004) and ‘A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living’ (1991). Quoting a comment he made on a passage in ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ (1963) by Maurice Sendak, as quoted by Bill Moyers in ‘NOW with Bill Moyers’, PBS (12 March 2004).Author's Info on Wikipedia - Author on ebay - Author on Amazon - More Quotes by this AuthorStart Searching Amazon for GiftsSend as Free eCard with optional Google Image